1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to communication devices that accept or receive voice input and more specifically to handheld telephone communication devices, which include but are not limited to, PDAs (personal digital assistants) that include or provide voice communication or processing capabilities, notebook and laptop or other information appliances that provide voice communication capabilities, as well as to wired telephones, cordless telephones or cellular/wireless/mobile telephones and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) telephones where a voice coder is used, and to other information appliances and communications devices where a voice coder is used.
2. Background of the Invention
The use of wireless or wired communications devices, cell phones, and VOIP devices has become widespread. In any phone communication system, signal quality is important. Many alternative approaches have been taken in an attempt to enhance signal quality and voice signal to background noise ratio. These attempts have resulted in some improvements but have not been entirely successful, especially in environments where the background or ambient noise is substantial. These conventional attempts have also largely been focused on digital signal processing (DSP) techniques applied within the device itself, such as for a non-limiting example, within a base-band processor of a cellular telephone. It may also be appreciated that at least some of these attempted digital signal processing based solutions carry with them increased phone complexity and cost as well as increased power consumption and correspondingly lower battery life and talk time.
These conventional attempts to increase voice to background signal-to-noise ratio (“SNR”) have also primarily been based on signal microphone devices with post-processing of the microphone input signal containing both spoken voice components and background noise components to extract the voice components or to emphasize or boost the voice components relative to the background noise. Little or no attention has been given to the problems and possible solutions that may be based upon the fundamental acoustic environment associated with use of handheld cellular telephones or other communication device.
Because signal quality is a significant concern in any voice communication system, there therefore remains a need for system, device, and method for enhancing signal quality, reducing or eliminating background noise and for increasing the overall voice to background signal-to-noise ratio. Advantageously such an approach would work in conjunction with existing digital signal processing based noise reduction and voice signal enhancement techniques.